


Shades of Blue

by dearwhimsy



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 00:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4855823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearwhimsy/pseuds/dearwhimsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days she's not sure if she's Raven or Mystique.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shades of Blue

She follows Magneto from Montreal to New York to Paris. She tries out a new skin every day and revels in the way Magneto’s gaze lingers on her transformations. That is, until he asks why she still refuses to wear her natural skin.

She stares at him for a long second before storming away to her own room to stare at herself.

A brunette with blue eyes and dimples stares back at her. A familiar stranger. And she wonders: _Why is she still hiding?_

She’d left behind everything she’d ever cared about and everything that had ever cared about her to be free and yet here she was, still trapped inside someone else’s skin. She stands in front of the mirror and watches it all fall apart.

That night, she dreams of being Raven. Of being the little blue girl that had found a home and hope in a young boy whose eyes were almost as blue as her scales.

Then she wakes up and remembers that she is Mystique now.

Magneto doesn’t say a word when she comes down to breakfast, only looks at her and _grins_. Mystique gives his grin back with even sharper teeth and he kisses her hungrily, cutting himself on her shark teeth and not caring.

She forces herself to stay blue as they climb into the car and start the long drive up from Los Angeles to Seattle.  The roads are poorly traveled at this time of the year but there are still a number of cars and people that pass them by. Each time, she struggles to stay herself against the demand of the voice in her head telling her _hide hide hide_. She watches them drive past and no one notices.

By the time they reach their motel, it’s almost a relief to shift into blue eyed man with dishwater blond hair. Once they’re settled in their rooms, the door locked and the blinds drawn, she turns to Magneto and defiantly refuses to turn blue again. She waits for him to say something. Anything. She stands in front of the TV with shoulders back and breath held. Magneto stretched out on the bed and grabbed the TV remote, pausing when he realized she was still standing in front of the TV.

 _Aren’t you going to say something?_ She asks him and he looks at her in confusion. _Aren’t you going to tell me I should be blue now?_

His confusion only seems to grow.

 _Isn’t it your choice?_ He asks.

 _Yes,_ she wants to say _._ Because it is. _Hers_ , not Charles or Magneto or the CIA but _hers_. It's been a long time but it should have always been her choice.

It’s her choice.

 _I want to be free_ , she whispers out loud and something inside her breaks.

Before Magneto can ask her any more questions, she clambers onto the second bed and pulls the covers over her. After a moment, she hears the TV turn on and the sound put on blasting.

She waits for someone to say something, for someone to say no. She knows she’s not going to hear from Charles, not now after all these weeks, not after she’s told him to let her go. Yet still she waits for the whisper of his mind in hers. For that murmur of worry and disapproval, tasting like Earl Grey without any sugar or cream. She waits for the motel phone to ring and Charles to be on the other end even though there’s no way he could know where she and Magneto had fled to much less the room phone number.

She waits and waits but there is nothing, even the ghost of his memory is quiet.

After another episode of the Three Stooges, she finally realizes that Charles is not there. He can’t judge Raven and Magneto refuses to judge Mystique and _she’s free to chose herself._

She curls into herself and cries because she's so angry at everyone and everything. She's angry at herself for holding on to Raven. She's angry at Magneto for taking her away from the only home she'd ever known. She's angry at Charles most of all for hiding her and then not finding her. She cries thru two more episodes of the Three Stooges when she’s done, she falls asleep to the accordion cheerfully playing the theme song to a new episode.


End file.
